This is how they "choose" the President in Klopstockia

“This is an ancient Klopstockian love song in the ancient Klopstockian language we spoke before we learned English”

Woke up this morning remembering this absurd political parody set in the mythical republic of Klopstockia. In Klopstockia all the women are named Angela, all the men are named George, and everyone is an Olympic-class athlete. W.C. Fields is the President because he’s the strongest man in Klopstockia. In the photo, Hugh Herbert, a frequent presence in 30′s comedy, is attempting to take over the presidency from Fields (unsuccessfully).

Jack Oakie is trying to court Fields’ daughter. He needs to sing the love song in order to propose, and he keeps getting interrupted. The song is “One Hour With You”, sung by Maurice Chevalier in the film of the same title, with nonsense lyrics. This is from memory, but it goes something like this:

Woof bloogle jik/Jik bloogle woof/Woof bloogle jik…etc.

It all ends at the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles, where Klopstockia wins and Jack Oakie gets the girl.

Go watch “The Bank Dick” again instead! It’s one of the most subversive movies ever made. Fields for President!

This is a nightmare, which will pass away with the morning. For the resources of nature and men’s devices are just as fertile and productive as they were. The rate of our progress towards solving the material problems of life is not less rapid. We are as capable as before of affording for everyone a high standard of life…and will soon learn to afford a standard higher still. We were not previously deceived. But to-day we have involved ourselves in a colossal muddle, having blundered in the control of a delicate machine, the working of which we do not understand. The result is that our possibilities of wealth may run to waste for a time—perhaps for a long time.

• Referring to economics and the Great Depression, “The Great Slump of 1930” (1930), in Essays in Persuasion

Keynes again. Marx said that every in history happens twice, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce. I’m not laughing.

For at least another hundred years we must pretend to ourselves and to every one that fair is foul and foul is fair; for foul is useful and fair is not. Avarice and usury and precaution must be our gods for a little longer still. – “The Future”, Essays in Persuasion (1931)

John Maynard Keynes wrote that in 1930. Are we there yet? Oh, wait…

Births:

No Smoking!

King James VI of Scotland and I of England 1566-1625. “The wisest fool in Christendom.” Sponsor of the King James Bible. Obsessive hater of tobacco. Many of Shakespeare’s best plays were produced during his reign.

I wonder if this thing is as fast as an abacus

Blaise Pascal 1623-1662. Philosopher, mathematician. Father of probability theory (had a friend who was a professional gambler). Inventor of a practical adding machine.

Moe Howard 1897-1975. I think somebody should write a collective biography of the 3 Stooges. There must be some important lessons to be learned from these mens’ lives in the Vaudeville and Hollywood cultures of their day. I’ve looked but never found a serious bio of the Stooges. There are some terrific books about the Marx Brothers, on the other hand.

Nyukk Nyukk Nyukk

Deaths:

Maximilian I of Mexico

Maximilian I, Emperor of Mexico 1832-1867. Set on the throne of Mexico in 1864 (while the United States was a little preoccupied with the Civil War) by Napoleon III, Maximilian was an Austrian Archduke. He appears to have truly meant well, although the regime that supported him was rapaciously imperialistic. He was executed in 1867 by the liberal revolutionaries under Benito Juarez.

Thomas J. Watson 1874-1956. Founder of IBM, which just turned 100.

Jean Arthur 1904 – 1900. Wonderful film actress, appeared in Frank Capra’s Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and others. Radiantly beautiful in Mr. Deeds – the camera just loved Jean Arthur.

Events:

1865. Juneteenth. “Over two years after the Emancipation Proclamation, slaves in Galveston, Texas are finally informed of their freedom.”

Ammannati, Ammannato, che bel marmo hai rovinato!

Bartolomeo Ammannati, b. 1511. Italian renaissance architect and sculptor. He worked on some pretty terrific projects, including one of the most beautiful bridges in Florence, the Ponte Santa Trinita and the Biblioteca Marciana in Venice. He’s remembered, however for the execrable, gigantic Fountain of Neptune in Piazza Signoria in Florence. Michelangelo dissed him thus:

Ammanannati, Ammanatto, che bel’ marmo hai rovinato! (how much beautiful marble you’ve ruined)

Ivan Goncharov, b. 1812. Author of the sublime, echt-Russian novel about the world’s laziest, most diffident man, Oblomov.

Mae Busch, b. 1891. Actress. Appeared in several of Buster Keaton’s great two reel comedies. Later often played one of “the wives” in Laurel and Hardy films.

Pass the Geritol, Martha, "Beat the Clock" is on

Bud Collyer, b. 1908 A fixture in 1950′s TV game shows “To Tell the Truth” and “Beat the Clock”. I hadn’t realized he played Superman in the radio serials in the 40′s, and the voice of the character in Max Fleischer’s animated Superman series, too.

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